On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 16: The Nature of the Devil and Satan

On the Revelation of Yahshua Christ, Part 16: The Nature of the Devil and Satan

In our last presentation, discussing the opening portion of Revelation chapter 12, we set forth the proposition that not only does the chapter describe the birth of Christ Himself, as well as other events of the remote past, but it also prophecies of the birth of a nation, or actually, of a kingdom under the dominion of Christ. The declaration was already made towards the end of chapter 11, which we interpret as a prophecy of the Reformation, that “15… The Kingdom of the Society of our Prince and of His Anointed has come, and He shall rule for the eternal ages!” We would cross-reference this passage with Daniel chapters 2 and 7 and the prophecy of a kingdom which belongs to the saints of the Most High. But here once again it is evident that an ongoing process is being described, and not a singular event, since a very similar declaration is made in this chapter, in a verse which we have not yet discussed, where we read “10… Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God has come.” As we had also asserted, the interpretations of this chapter are manifold, and each aspect deserves our full attention.

So now we shall continue our discussion with another aspect of this prophecy in Revelation chapter 12, as it reveals for us the nature and the origin of the Devil and Satan, who is also called the Serpent and the Great Dragon. We have already seen that it was the Great Dragon who had sought to kill the Christ child as soon as He was born, and in that instance this dragon must have been manifest in the person of Herod, the Edomite king of Judaea. But as it is described here later in this chapter, the same Dragon would go on to persecute the seed of the woman, so the Dragon cannot represent Herod alone, since Herod was dead by the time that the woman had received the testimony of Christ. So although Herod represented the Dragon, the Dragon is described as continuing long after Herod is gone, where it is evident that the Dragon, the Devil and Satan must all be terms which represent a collective entity rather than any mere individual. Here we see that the same entity is also referred to as the Serpent, and as “that Serpent of old,” long after that Serpent of old must also be dead, so once again we would assert that all of these terms represent a collective entity, even if they also describe individuals of that collection, or of that race, who had lived at any given time.

So with this we will repeat a passage that we had already begun to discuss at the end of our last presentation, so that we may offer further commentary and proofs of our assertions:

7 And there was a war in heaven, Michael and his messengers fighting with the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his messengers, 8 and they did not prevail, nor was their place found any longer in heaven.

This verse also informs us that Satan is not merely a demon but was cast out into the earth itself, as a race of people here on earth, in spite of the fact that heaven may also be a metaphor for seats of power and authority.

9 And the great dragon had been cast down, that Serpent of old, who is called the False Accuser and the Adversary; he who deceives the whole inhabited earth had been cast into the earth, and his messengers had been cast down with him.

We have already made critical comments on the text of this passage at the end of our last presentation. But here we shall further explain that the word translated as False Accuser is διάβολος, and the word translated as Adversary is Σατανᾶς, which is not a Greek word, but which was written in Greek letters as a transliteration of a Hebrew word. These words are usually translated as devil and satan in denominational Bibles. The terms were apparently considered to be interchangeable among the Hebrew scholars of the Hellenistic period, since where Satan is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:1, in the 109th Psalm, in Zechariah chapter 3 and frequently in Job, the Hebrew term שטן (Satan, shin tet nun or STN) was always rendered in the Septuagint with the Greek word διάβολος, rather than with a word that would literally mean adversary.

In many of these places in Hebrew, and throughout the Greek scriptures, these words are accompanied by definite articles, which indicate that a particular Accuser or a particular Adversary is being referenced, and not merely anyone who may at one time or another be an accuser or an adversary. In my own translation, I chose to translate them more literally, rather than as Devil or Satan, in order to demystify their meaning, as they often refer to people, and not merely to evil spirits, or demons. Then in order to signify that in at least most places where these words were used a specific entity was being described, I capitalized the terms, a practice which I shall endeavor to continue in all of my writings.

As it is recorded in Luke chapter 10, Yahshua Christ had declared that “I beheld the Adversary falling as lightning from heaven!” The word beheld is in the imperfect tense, which refers to a past event, but also to an event of the past which may be ongoing as the words were spoken. However the ejection of Satan from heaven could not have happened during the time of His earthly presence, as there is no event in the immediate history of the period up to that moment in His ministry which could be described in that manner and inserted into the context in which those words were spoken. So we shall repeat a wider portion of the passage, so that we may see the context.

As Christ intended to walk from Galilee to Jerusalem, He had sent seventy-two of his disciples ahead into the towns and villages along the route, so that they may announce His coming. Then, where their mission was apparently completed, we read: “17 Then the seventy-two returned with great joy saying: ‘Prince, even the demons are subjected to us by Your Name!’ 18 And He said to them ‘I beheld the Adversary falling as lightning from heaven! 19 Behold! I have given to you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and no one shall by any means do you injustice. 20 But in this you must not rejoice: that spirits are subject to you. Rather, rejoice that your names are inscribed in the heavens.’”

Here it should be evident, that aside from demons, the serpents and scorpions are not references to the actual creatures, but rather in this passage they are pejoratives describing both demons and people, and those people are “the enemy” over whom the apostles were given authority to tread. The statement here as it is made by Christ actually explains the presence of people whom He called serpents and scorpions with the fact the He beheld Satan falling as lightning from heaven. Ostensibly, these are the same enemies from whom Christ had come to save His people, as it is described in Luke chapter 1 in the words of Zacharias the father of John the Baptist which declared “70 just as He spoke through the mouths of His holy prophets from of old: 71 preservation from our enemies and from the hand of all those who hate us!”

In the Old Testament, there are two words which the King James version had translated as devils, each of them on two occasions. In Leviticus chapter 17 and 2 Chronicles chapter 11, the Hebrew word is שעיר or satyr, which is a reference to a statue that represented an embodied or human-like devil, and in Deuteronomy chapter 32 and the 106th Psalm the Hebrew word is שד or shed, which is a demon, or disembodied devil. Unfortunately, even in the New Testament the King James Version did not distinguish between embodied and disembodied devils, but only caused confusion where it had translated both δαίμων and διάβολος as devil. The Satan of the book of Job was not just any adversary, but a particular individual labelled as Satan, and he was not a demon, because he admitted “going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it” (1:7), and he also joined the men of Israel as they appeared at the tabernacle of Yahweh (1:6), as the law commanded them to do three times each year (Exodus 23:17, Deuteronomy 16:16).

Here in verse 9 of this chapter we see that the Great Dragon, “that Serpent of old”, the Devil and Satan are all equated, so that all of those terms represent the same entity. While it has been argued that the Serpent of Genesis is not equated to Satan in the Old Testament, it has been implied, but only in certain prophetic writings. For example, in Isaiah chapter 27 the serpent is also described as the dragon and as leviathan. But once again, as in Luke chapter 10, this is a reference to the enemies of Christ. So we shall read the passage and the verses which precede it in order to understand the context, which are the last verses of Isaiah chapter 26: “26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. 27:1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” This is not speaking in reference to a literal sea creature. The sea in that passage is the mass of the world’s peoples, and the enemies of Yahweh are described as the serpent among them. So that message in Isaiah is very much like the profession of Zacharias in Luke chapter 1, and of Christ in Luke chapter 10.

There are commentators who claim that this passage in the Revelation is only describing events of 70 AD, when Jerusalem was destroyed, however that cannot be, since by no means was Jewish influence diminished throughout the rest of the Roman world at that time, and according to early Christian writers such as Tertullian and Minucius Felix, the Roman persecutions of Christians in the ensuing centuries were executed at the instigation of the Jews. According to the words of Christ in Revelation chapter 3, had Satan merely relocated to Pergamos at that time, where in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which was written in Corinth nearly 30 years before 70 AD, Paul had described Satan as sitting in the temple of Yahweh.

While the events of 70 AD may have been symbolic of the casting down of Satan – the adversaries of Christ collectively – where they were removed from the temple of Yahweh, this was only the beginning of a process which culminated several centuries later, the binding of Satan into the pit, which will be discussed at length in our commentary on Revelation chapter 20. The reference to “that Serpent of old” can only be a reference to the Serpent of Genesis chapter 3, and the events which took place in the Garden of Eden, and therefore Satan must have been cast down to earth before that time. In Luke chapter 10 Yahshua Christ said “I beheld”, describing an event in the past, and He being Yahweh God Incarnate must have been referring to what we see here in this passage of the Revelation, and therefore it must have happened long before 70 AD, and even before the creation of Adam.

This event to which Christ had referred in Luke must have happened in the past, and in the remote past, since here in the Revelation we see the dragon equated with “that Serpent of old, who is called the False Accuser [or Devil] and the Adversary [or Satan]”. We read in Matthew chapter 13 that Yahshua Christ had come to reveal things which were kept secret from the founding of the world. That statement was made in relation to the parable of the wheat and the tares, which in turn had explained how there were people who were tares, and that their origin was with the devil. This is in the explanation of the parable of the wheat and the tares, so the words must be taken at face value, and not as allegories, or it would not be an explanation. Here in Revelation 12:9 we see that the Dragon, Satan, the Devil and the Serpent of Genesis chapter 3 are all the same entity, and by this we know that the Serpent is surely not a literal snake, although that is readily evident in the Genesis 3 account as it is. Now we shall take this one step further, and assert that these fallen angels were already in the garden along with the serpent when Adam was created in Genesis chapter 2, but there they are called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and in Genesis chapter 6 they are referred to in Hebrew as nephilim, a word mistakenly translated as giants, because they were not all literal giants. There is no etymological reason to interpret nephilim as giants.

In Genesis chapter 3, there is a description of a sexual seduction of Eve by the Serpent, which is described as a parable. In spite of the text of Genesis 4:1, a verse which is known by mainstream scholars to contain a gloss, Cain was not Adam's natural son. Rather, as a result of the transgression described earlier in the chapter, at Genesis 3:15, we see a promise of a prolonged struggle between the seed, or offspring, of the Serpent, and the seed, or offspring, of the woman. The first expression of this struggle is in the murder of Abel. The sowing of Cain by the Serpent, as well as the Genesis 6 event with the Nephilim, is what Christ had described in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares found in Matthew chapter 13. These events must represent the sowing of tares by the devil, as the devils have no power to create, but they certainly may corrupt the Creation of God as they are doing even today.

In Romans chapter 5, Paul of Tarsus had explained that “13 for until the law sin was in the Society; but sin was not accounted, there not being law; 14 but death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not committed an error resembling the transgression of Adam, who is an image of the future.” So the transgression of Adam caused death, and the men who died in the flood of Noah were also punished and died for their sins. Yet why were they punished if, as Paul had stated, “sin was not accounted, there not being law”? Even Cain was not punished for the murder of Abel according to the law, because there was no law requiring punishment for murder. That he was told that the soil would not yield for him was not a punishment for murder, but only the revocation of a privilege as the soil belongs to Yahweh.

However Adam was given one law, in Genesis chapter 2 where we read “16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Earlier in that same chapter we read “ 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” So there were two trees in the garden that were different from the others and distinguished for that reason, because they did not grow out of the ground. Rather, they were only in the midst of the garden, and therefore they must have been metaphorical trees. Throughout Scripture, people are often described metaphorically as trees or as plants.

We would assert that the Tree of Life represents Yahweh God and the race which He had created, represented by Adam and Eve. That is how Adam clings to the Tree of Life, by staying with and mating with his own kind. These are the wheat of the parable. But the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil are the race of the fallen angels, and mingling with men to create bastards, they sowed the tares of the field. This later tree, therefore, represents a race of people who knew good, or were once on the side of God, and who then chose to experience evil, which is rebellion from God, and they were already in existence here on the earth when Adam was placed into the garden. This can only refer to those original fallen angels, whom the apostle Jude described as having “kept not their first estate”. These “angels that sinned” are also discussed in Peter's second epistle, in chapter 2. Here the identity of that tree is revealed by Yahshua Christ, as it is one of those things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

In Genesis chapter 6, in the Masoretic Text from which most Bibles are translated, there is a phrase which says “sons of God”. But in associated Enoch literature found among the Dead Sea Scrolls the same phrase is “sons of heaven” instead, and in some manuscripts of the Septuagint, notably the Codex Alexandrinus, it says “angels” rather than “sons of God”. But in any event, these same entities are also described as Nephilim in that same place, where we read in the King James Version: “4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” The word translated as giants is נפילים or nephilim, and the word means fallen ones although that definition is in recent times disputed by the enemies of Christ. However Wilhelm Gesenius, in his Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, admits the fact that our definition of nephilim, as fallen ones was at one time the generally accepted definition where he wrote in the entry for nephilim that “Those who used to interpret the passage in Genesis of the fall of angels, were accustomed to render נפילים [nephilim] fallers, rebels, apostates.”

There is no reason for a Christian not to associate the Nephilim with the fall of the angels, as Christ associates the fallen angels with the dragon and “that serpent of old”, and there is no other reason in Scripture which explains the presence of nephilim “in the earth in those days” who were already there before the flood of Noah. The angels of Genesis chapter 6 were not angels from heaven, but angels which had already fallen, which accounts for the presence of the serpent in Genesis chapter 3. Christ is the authority for these things, and not lexicographers such as Gesenius, even if he was a Christian.

The only explanation for the presence of nephilim, or “giants in the earth in those days”, which describes people who certainly did not descend from Adam, but who were present in the days of Noah so that they could commit the sin of miscegenation by taking wives of the daughters of Adam, is given here by Christ Himself in Revelation chapter 12, and this same event is also what He had proclaimed as having witnessed in the past, in Luke chapter 10. When the children of Adam in Genesis chapter 6 mingled in marriages with the Nephilim, they were destroyed in punishment. The only law which they could have broken is the only law which they had been given, and the only law which they could have been given is the one law which was given to their father Adam where Yahweh commanded: “17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” That is also the same law which Adam and Eve had transgressed, and by that we also know what the eating of fruit offered by the serpent actually represented in the allegory.

During an act of love-making the Bride in the Song of Solomon, in chapter 2 of the work, is portrayed as having declared that “3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” Later, in Song chapter 4, the Husband declares that “12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. 13 Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, 14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices….” So in response to that, the Bride extends an invitation and she says: “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.” These passages and many others help to establish that the eating of fruit in Genesis chapter 3 was indeed an allegory for sexual relations, and the fact that for one and the same law both Adam and Eve and later the descendants of Adam in Genesis chapter 6 were punished with death proves that assertion beyond any reasonable dispute.

The Kenites, the descendants of Cain who are never reckoned among the descendants of Adam are found again in Genesis chapter 15 and in later Scriptures where we see that they had mingled with the Canaanites, and also the Rephaim (giants) and several other tribes who did not descend from Noah, and who were outside of the region of the local flood when it occurred and were therefore left unscathed by that event. The Anakim, a group of giants descended by one of the Nephilim named Anak, are also identified explicitly as Nephilim in Numbers chapter 13 and Deuteronomy chapter 2 .

Even later, Esau had taken wives of the Canaanites, and he also settled in Mount Hor, the home of those ancient Canaanites known as the Hurrians or Horites. Many of the Horites are explicitly mixed into the genealogy of Esau’s descendants in Genesis chapter 36. We would assert that the word Hivite in the King James Version and others is a misreading of a Hebrew letter, the Vav being mistaken for the Resh, and that the proper reading should be Horite. This accounts for the fact that Horites, or Hurrians, are found throughout the region by archaeologists but Hivites are not found outside of the Bible.

While I have made this assertion for many years, recently I found corroboration for my opinion in an article on the Hivites from Encyclopaedia Judaica, which says in part: “E. A. Speiser noted the absence of any reference to the Hurrians (Horites), who played a major role in Israelite history, in the biblical lists of Canaanite nations. He called attention to Hurrian personal names associated with Shechem and with other areas whose inhabitants the Bible calls Hivites. He further noted the juxtaposition of the Hurrian Jebusites and the Hivites in all but two of the biblical references to the latter. Thus he concluded that Hivite was a biblical term for Hurrian. Speiser supported his identification of the biblical Hivites with the Hurrians by reference to Genesis 36:2, and 36:20, where the terms Hivite and Horite are apparently used interchangeably.” Now we would assert that this is really because of the confusion over the single Hebrew letter, as the Vav (ו), Resh (ר) and Daleth (ד) were also often confused by either scribes or translators on many other occasions. So in Genesis 36:2 Zibeon is called a Hivite, חוי, but in 36:20 he is a Horite, חרי.

In Genesis chapter 15 we read that the land of Canaan was inhabited by the Canaanites and by four other tribes which Genesis chapter 10 informs us are also families of the Canaanites, which are the Hittites, Amorites, Girgashites, and Jebusites. But then along with those tribes there are aliens who had not descended from the sons of Noah, which are the Kenizzites, Kadmonites, and Perizzites, along with the Kenites and the Rephaim, who are the descendants of Cain and the giants, or Nephilim. Elsewhere, other aliens are mentioned as being in Canaan, for example in Genesis chapter 14 where there are references to “the Zuzims in Ham”, and the “Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim”, and the Anakim who were Nephilim. The Hebrew word zuzim is said to mean “roving creatures”, and elsewhere, in Deuteronomy chapter 2, they are called zamzummim, a word which is defined as plotters.

The Emim were also giants, described as both Anakim and Rephaim in Deuteronomy chapter 2 where it speaks of the same region and it says: “10 The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; 11 Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims…” In Numbers chapter 13 we learn that certain Rephaim were called Anakim because they were sons of a certain one of the Nephilim who was named Anak, where we read “33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” The word for giants in that passage is Nephilim, the fallen ones, the same word which is found in Genesis chapter 6.

Throughout the historical portions of the Scriptures, the proclivity of the Canaanites to intermarry with their neighbors, and to encourage such intermarriage, is fully evident in their interactions with the children of Israel. Over the many centuries preceding the invasion of Canaan by the children of Israel, during which all of these tribes had dwelt together, they certainly must have all mixed with one another. So while ten tribes were listed with the Canaanites in Genesis chapter 15, in a similar list in Deuteronomy chapter 7, which is from a period four hundred years after that of Genesis chapter 15, there are only seven tribes listed rather than ten. Yahweh God had commanded the children of Israel to utterly slay every one of these people, without exception, and they failed, for which reason they suffer with them to this very day. Understanding their origins, only then may we understand the reason for the command.

We have already discussed here earlier, in our commentary on Revelation chapter 2 and elsewhere, that the Judaean historian Flavius Josephus had explained in detail that the Judaeans of the second century before Christ had forcibly converted all of the Edomites and other aliens who were dwelling in the land of Canaan to accept what we must call Judaism, to be circumcised and to become Judaeans. So as Strabo of Cappadocia had written in Book 16, chapter 2 of his Geography, the Idumaeans, or Edomites, were “mixed up” with the Judaeans, and they “joined the Judaeans, and shared in the same customs with them” [16.2.34]. Strabo mentioned that situation again in a later chapter of that same book, and he stands as a second witness to what Josephus had described, and Paul of Tarsus in Romans chapter 9 is a third witness. This is how Herod the Edomite is a representative of the Dragon: he was an actual descendant of both Esau and Cain, the son of the Serpent of Genesis chapter 3, as well as others of the Nephilim as they were all mingled together.

So in Luke chapter 11 Yahshua Christ had spoken of a race, describing fathers and sons both near and remote, which was responsible for the blood of all of the prophets from Abel unto Zechariah. Only the descendants of Cain can possibly be held responsible for the blood of Abel. It can be established that Cain killed Abel because Abel challenged him for the family priesthood, and Abel's sacrifice was accepted while Cain's was rejected. Yahweh had already told Cain that if he did not do well, it is because “sin lieth at the door”, implying that Cain was born under sinful circumstances (Genesis 4:7). In later Scriptures, we see Edomites such as Doeg who followed down that same path, as it is described in 1 Samuel chapters 21 and 22 where of all the men who were with Saul, only Doeg would agree to kill the priests of Yahweh.

Where Christ had told His opponents, in John chapters 8 and 10, that they were not children of God, but were rather children of the Devil, and that they were not His sheep but had entered the sheepfold as wolves, it is for this same reason. So that is why He also told them, in John chapter 10, “26 But you do not believe, because you are not My sheep! ” Where both Christ (Matthew chapters 12 and 23) and John the Baptist (Matthew 3:7, Luke 3:7) had described certain of the Pharisees as a “generation of vipers”, as it is in the King James Version, the Greek word for generation is γέννημα, which describes what has been born of someone, so by that term they had referred not to the men which they had addressed, but to their parents as vipers, and therefore they certainly were describing a race of serpents.

It is evident in the history of Josephus as well as in diverse places in the prophecy of Malachi, in the Gospel of John, in the Book of Acts and in the epistles of Paul, that many of the priests and leaders of Judaea whom Christ had addressed were actually Edomites, and not Israelites. But after their ancestors had been converted, which was as early as 130 BC, they had come to think of themselves as Judaeans. As Josephus said of the Edomites of Dora and Marissa upon their forced conversion by John Hyrcanus around that same time, “at which time, therefore, this befell them, that they were hereafter considered to be Jews”, or Judaeans. A short time later Alexander Janneus, a successor of Hyrcanus, forcibly converted Edomites and others in over two dozen towns and regions of what later became known as Judaea (Josephus' Antiquities Book 13, from line 257 and see also lines 393-398).

From these Judaeans, who are those who had rejected Christ, the Jews of today are in large part descended. In John chapter 8, as we would translate the passage today, Yahshua Christ had told them that “You are the sons of a father: the False Accuser [or Devil]! And you wish to do the desires of your father! He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him! When he speaks a lie, he speaks from of his own devices, because he is a liar and his father!” So it is indeed evident that He had spoken to descendants of Cain, since only Cain was a murderer from the beginning. Also, Cain could not have been an Adamite, but a devil, and the devil is “that serpent of old”. The betrayer Judas Iscariot, of whom it can also be demonstrated had descended from Edomites, was also called a devil by Christ, as it is recorded in John chapter 6. Saying these things to men, calling them devils and dragons and serpents, and the offspring of serpents, while also telling them that God was not their Father, Christ was not a slanderer, rather He was simply stating biological facts.

The Enoch Literature, which the apostle Jude had quoted and paraphrased at length in his one short epistle, and which is now extant only in fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and in other sources, explains that these fallen angels had mingled their seed with hundreds, even thousands, of all sorts of animals, in addition to the daughters of men as the account is found in Genesis chapter 6, for the purpose of miscegenation and the corruption of the Creation of God. These accounts attribute to these Nephilim acts such as the creation of demons, monsters, and bastards. But the perpetrators of these acts cannot be the sons of Cain only, because in the Enoch literature they are often called the Watchers, just as the angels are also called Watchers by the prophet Daniel (see Daniel chapter 4, and for the Enoch fragments, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, 1996, Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr. and Edward Cook, Harper Collins Publishers, pp. 290-295). While the original angels may not be with us today, their descendants certainly are, and both the Kenites and the Rephaim, or giants, as well as other races in our Scripture and in our history are corruptions derived from them, and they have descendants among us today.

Yet while this “war in heaven” certainly does describe events which must have taken place in remote antiquity, it is also a prophecy with more than one fulfillment, having an application here in the present age, which is further evident from the context and placement of the paragraph within the narrative of this chapter. The victory of Yahshua Christ over Hell and Death in His Resurrection, which shall culminate in the final chapters of the Revelation, also assures the future ejection of Satan from heaven, where heaven is representative of the seats of power and authority here on earth. Yet there are other occasions in history where Satan was ejected from heaven, if only temporarily. At this point in history to which we would assign this chapter of the Revelation, Satan – in the form of the crime families that had come to control the Roman Catholic Church and many of the monarchs in Europe – was ejected from heaven with the success of the Reformation, and ultimately with the loss of the temporal powers of the papacy which we shall discuss as we present Revelation chapter 13. But now, in this age, Satan is in heaven once again, metaphorically speaking, as predominantly Jewish families control the entire world economy, and therefore also world politics, through their control of the world’s central banking system.

The description of “Michael and his messengers fighting with the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his messengers” may also be compared to Daniel chapter 12 where it states: “1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”

As a digression, there have been critics of our work who insist that Michael describes Yahshua Christ Himself, which is not true, and that Daniel chapter 12 is describing the actual return of Christ. This is not entirely true, as the Resurrection may be after the return of Christ but Michael is not Christ and Christ is not Michael. First, in Daniel chapter 10, the prophet sees a stunning vision of a man who seems like an angel, but is otherwise unidentified. Earlier in the book, Daniel had mentioned the angel Gabriel on two different occasions, but this is not necessarily Gabriel. Among other things this man had told Daniel that he was being resisted by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” and that he had no help except from “Michael, one of the chief princes”. Therefore we see that the Michael of Daniel is merely “one of the chief princes”, or rulers, as the text explicitly reads in the English, Greek, Latin and Hebrew versions. But Yahshua Christ is one and the same with Yahweh God, He is God Incarnate, and he is not merely one of a group of peers of either men or angels.

The name Michael is from a Hebrew term which is generally interpreted as a question, to mean “Who is like God?” While the Michael of Daniel chapter 12 precipitates a time of great trouble, at the return of the Christ the children of God are promised a time of redemption and the destruction of their enemies, rather than a time of trouble. Yet every time in HISTORY a man opposed Jewry, he invites trouble upon himself and his nation, and this has been the cause of great wars these past few hundred years. But the children of Israel do have a promise which is yet to be fulfilled, which is found in the prophecy of Obadiah, but also more briefly in Ezekiel chapter 25: “14 And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger and according to my fury; and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord GOD.” However this time has not yet come, as Paul of Tarsus had written in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, informing Christians that they should be “6… in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.”

So we shall continue to assert that in this age there have been many Michaels, men who have stood up to oppose world Jewry, which is the present rule of Satan over this world. Among them are at least some of the Reformers, some of the American founders, and leaders such as Andrew Jackson, Kaiser Wilhelm, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and especially Adolf Hitler, who were all men who had stood up to defend at least a portion of the children of Yahweh against the seed of the Dragon. And this has indeed caused a “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time”, as tens of millions of Christians had been slain in recent wars because of it. There were well over a hundred million deaths suffered mostly by White Christians in the thirty-year period of European history in the two world wars and the accompanying terror of Jewish Communism during that period. Most of these deaths have been caused by the vanity of the leaders of the people and the intrigues of the international Jewish banking cabal which exploits and manipulates them – which shall be discussed at much greater length here in later chapters of the Revelation, if Yahweh God be willing.

The Thirty Years’ War was a direct result of the Reformation, and it destroyed half of Germany. In our opinion, the War of Northern Aggression was the direct result of the abolition of the Second Bank of the United States by Andrew Jackson. The Second World War was inevitable when Germany’s National Socialists exerted their own control over German banking and industry, replaced the Jewish usury-based banking system, and expelled Jews from all of the political offices and also from the seats of control or influence in law, academia and other professional vocations.

But all of these Michaels had failed, because no man is like God, and because vengeance belongs to Yahweh God alone, for which reason we see in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares that only He and His appointed angels can remove the children of the Devil from our society, and cast Satan out of heaven once again, this last time for good and forever because their fate awaits them in the Lake of Fire. We may yet face even more trouble, and we should expect to, but once Christ finally does return our troubles will all come to an end, as He Himself has promised. As it is written in Matthew chapter 24, in a prophecy of the time of the end, “6 And you are going to hear of wars and reports of wars. See that you are not troubled. For it needs to happen, but not yet is the end.” Then, on the same occasion as it is recorded in Luke chapter 21, “28 And upon the beginning of these things happening, straighten up and raise your heads, since your redemption approaches.”

Now we shall commence with verse 10 of this 12th chapter of the Revelation, where in a context following the prophecies related to the Reformation, it is once again announced:

10 And I heard a great voice saying: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God has come, and the authority [P47 repeats “salvation”, rather than having “authority” ] of His anointed [of perhaps “Christ”], because the accuser of our brethren has been cast down, he accusing them before our God day and night.

Here the word translated as accuser is not διάβολος, which we typically translate as false accuser, but instead it is κατήγωρ (A), or a variation, κατήγορος (P47, א, C and the MT), a compound word which means to speak against, and therefore also to denounce or accuse. The verb rendered here as “he accusing” is a Substantive from the related verb, κατηγορέω. Some manuscripts (א and C) have the pronoun in the genitive case rather than the accusative, where we would be compelled to treat the Substantive as a noun and write “the accuser of them”. The phrase “cast down” is from the verb βάλλω, which only means to throw or to cast, and we have inferred down from the context. The manuscripts of the Majority Text following Andreas of Caesareia have καταβάλλω, which is literally to cast down.

But even the Roman Catholic Church sought to control the minds of the people by constantly accusing them of some sin, and hence the need for them to pay indulgences. Its pompous claims of “apostolic succession” were only used to justify its tyranny.

The Kingdom of God was promised after that very first rebellion of the angels, with the establishment of the first man Adam in the Garden of Eden. So we read in Genesis chapter 1: “26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” The word translated as dominion is literally to tread down and is related to a word which means conquer, so Adam was to absolutely dominate everything upon the earth.

While Adam had failed, his purpose shall indeed be fulfilled with the last Adam, Yahshua Christ Himself, at His manifestation. The first promise of this is found at Genesis 3:23, where it says “now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”. As we have already explained, the Greek word διάβολος is an accuser, and by implication is a false accuser, as it is often translated here. One example of this trait of the Adversary is found in the opening chapter of the book of Job, where we read: “9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? 10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.” Today there are countless examples of this trait of Satan – the Adversary – as the false accuser of our brethren. The so-called holocaust is a prominent example.

11 And they prevailed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of [C wants “the word of”] their testimony and they had not loved their lives [or “souls”, ψυχή] even to death. 12 For this reason rejoice, heavens and those dwelling in them! Woe to the earth and the sea! Because the False Accuser has come down to you having great [א wants “great”] wrath, knowing that he has a short time!”

The reason to rejoice is attributed to the fact that men who love Christ and who kept His testimony had prevailed even if they died. Just as Paul had written, Christians shall not prevail until their own obedience is fulfilled. Christ Himself had said in John chapter 14, “15 If ye love me, keep my commandments”, and later in chapter 15 “10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.” The acceptance of Yahshua Christ and the keeping of His commandments, which are a necessary expression of that acceptance, are the only means of preservation for the children of Israel, and only by doing that shall they overcome the Devil. As the blood of the literal lamb of the first Passover had kept their ancient ancestors from the Angel of Death which slew all of the first-born of Egypt, so it is today that Israelites must cloak themselves with the blood of Christ the Lamb, and they shall live. This is the summary meaning of the allegory of the “whole armor of God” which Paul had described in Ephesians chapter 6.

The woe here certainly seems to be the third of the three woes of Revelation chapter 8, which are also mentioned in chapter 11 where we read “14 The second woe has departed. Behold, the third woe comes quickly!” So while this third woe is summarized here, it seems not to be fully described until the seven vials of the seventh trumpet are poured out in Revelation chapter 15.

As for those who prevail over the Devil even in death, the following is from chapter 3 of my own recent and still ongoing translation of the Wisdom of Solomon: “1 For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them. 2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to die, and their departure is reckoned a misery 3 and the passing away from us a destruction, but they are in peace. 4 For if perhaps they are punished in the eyes of men, their hope is full of immortality, 5 and being disciplined a little they shall do very well, because God has tested them and found them to be worthy of Himself. 6 As gold in a furnace He proves them and as a whole burnt offering He receives them, 7 and in the time of their visitation they shall shine and they shall run about as sparks in the stubble. 8 They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and their Prince shall rule over them for the ages. 9 They having trusted in Him shall understand Truth and the faithful shall abide in His love, because favor and mercy are for His elect.”

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been cast down into the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the man-child [literally only “the male”, τὸν ἄρσενα].

The verb διώκω is translated as persecute here. According to Liddell & Scott it is generally “pursue, chase, in war or hunting… pursue an object, seek after…” and also to drive, urge or impel something or someone, or “as law-term, prosecute, ὁ διώκων the prosecutor…” Lost even in our own translation is the fact that these words, κατήγορος, κατηγορέω and διώκω, which were used in legal language as accuse and prosecute, or as accuser and prosecutor, also portray the devil as fulfilling a role which suits him well, as a lawyer or prosecutor. The enemies of Christ have indeed fulfilled that role throughout history, and here we see that it is a facet of their innate character.

While Revelation chapter 12 is prophesying things which had occurred following the Reformation, it is also prophesying things which had happened in the remote past, and throughout the centuries leading up to the Reformation. It is supplying aspects of history in a panorama so that we may study them and understand the forces driving history, or which Yahweh God employs to drive history, whether they be good or evil. The dragon was cast down to earth before the creation of Adam, and the result was the seduction of Eve and the proclamation of eternal enmity between the two disparate groups, which is found in Genesis 3:15.

The dragon was cast down to earth again in 70 AD, when Jerusalem was destroyed, where the testimony of Christ removed all of their pretense of Godly authority which was derived from their control of the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. As Christ has said, the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat (Matthew 23:2). The dispersed Jews were later behind all of the persecutions of Christians until the time of Constantine, persecuting the woman of Revelation chapter 12. However once Christianity became recognized by Rome, the dragon was locked away in a pit, which shall be discussed at length in Revelation chapter 20. The dragon was once again cast down to earth with the Reformation, when it became evident that the Jewish popes and the Jews behind them would not maintain their power over at least a significant portion of the the children of Yahweh.

At that time the Christian peoples of northern Europe, with the help of their God, had freed themselves from the beast tyrants, from the monarchs and from the popes, and America was founded as a self-governing Christian republic. But from that same time Christians have had many more centuries of persecution from the dragon, in the Thirty Years’ War, and from the time of the French Revolution whereby Satan had fully emerged from the pit, and all of the wars and revolutions of Europe which have occurred ever since, and which have all been instigated by the Jews. Aspects of these assertions are also subjects of discussion for Revelation chapters 13 and 20.

14 And they had given [P47 has “And it had been given”] to the woman the two wings of a great eagle, in order that she may fly into the desert into her place, where she is nourished there for a time and times and half of a time from the face of the Serpent.

This desert place is another description of what is described in verse 6, where the woman, representing the children of Israel, had fled into the wilderness of Europe where she had later received the Gospel. As we had also discussed, the “time and times and half a time” represent 1,260 prophetic years, and it took nearly that long for the children of Israel, the Germanic tribes and related peoples, to convert to Christianity, returning to that same God, Yahweh, who had cast them off for their sins many centuries before. During this entire period, Jews had very little influence in the affairs of the Germanic people, and virtually no ecclesiastical or political control.

15 And the Serpent had cast from his mouth water as a river after [or “behind”, ὀπίσω] the woman, in order that he may have her carried off by the river. 16 And the earth assisted the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and gulped down the river which the dragon had cast from his mouth.

The water which the Serpent had cast from its mouth were all of the other races which the Jews had brought to fight against the Christian peoples of Europe and the Near East. First there were the Arab invasions, which were instigated by the Jews, especially the invasion of Gothic Spain (this story is told quite well in The Plot Against the Church by Maurice Pinay), and the destruction of the formerly White lands of Mesopotamia, the Near East, Northern Africa and the Levant. Then there were the Turkic invasions, and the Turks invaded the Byzantine lands at the behest of Jewish and Arab merchants. Then there were the invasions of the Mongols, who were also Islamic and who followed the Turks, having also subjugated a large portion of them.

Even Jewish sources admit that Jews had invited the Arabs to Spain, and even opened the gates of Toledo to assist in their conquest. Certain Jewish and non-Jewish sources have also admitted that Jews in the areas which had been conquered by the Ottomans had greatly assisted their cause against the Byzantine Christians, and had indeed helped them in Constantinople where the Ottomans had gained entry into the city through its Jewish quarter (i.e. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, by Stanford J. Shaw, pp. 25-26). Accusations have been made that it was Jews in Constantinople who had betrayed the city by opening the gates to the Turks, something which they had also done for Arabs and Turks in other cities. In his treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, written in 1543, Martin Luther also described the Jewish boasts that they were in control of Germany through their practice of usury even at that time. A converso Jew who was also a Franciscan friar named Alonso de Espina had written in his Fortalitium Fidei that in 1464, large numbers of conversos sailed from Spain for Constantinople, where they intended to revert to the religion of their fathers and give aid to the Turk Antichrist, who planned to march on Christian Europe and subdue it as the Moors had subdued Spain in the 8th Century (cited in The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History, by E. Michael Jones). The Turks would continue in their endeavor to conquer Europe for another two hundred years and longer. All of these invasions of Christian Europe ultimately failed to destroy Christendom, and by the time that America began to be settled, the Jew could no longer bring the world's goat nations against the people of Europe.

How the earth had helped the woman is in part a mystery, but in part answered by history, however the histories of the regions outside of European culture were usually very poorly recorded, if they were recorded at all. Under the Communist regime, Chinese history has been rewritten, or invented, to give China a glorious past, and Western academics seem to have accepted the revisions without question. But researchers have found that the Black Death which ravaged Europe in the 14th century had originated in Central Asia, the source of many of these invaders of Europe, and then spread into China and Europe. It is reported to have killed as many as sixty million people in Central Asia. The same researchers have also concluded that the spread of the disease was instigated by climate change in Asia. So in this and in other ways, the earth does seem to have helped the woman. By the 16th century, all of these areas outside of European culture had degenerated and regressed, and the populations were reduced and in comparative poverty.

In recent times, Satan has flooded Christendom with aliens once again, but they have done it by another means, under the guise of egalitarianism and multiculturalism. Yet while this is a continuation of this same war mentioned here, it is also in fulfillment of many other prophecies, such as Isaiah 56:9-11, Jeremiah 31:27-30, or even Revelation chapter. These last wars which the Dragon has made with the woman have been from the inside, first by manipulating the Christian nations to fight against each other, and then by convincing them to flood themselves with their enemies, and this war is still ongoing at this very moment!

Isaiah chapter 56 describes one aspect of this internal conflict: “8 The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him. 9 All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest. 10 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. 12 Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” This is evident in society now, that all of the pastors are corrupted with a love of the world, and work for mammon rather than for Christ. But Yahweh has allowed this for both the chastisement of His people, and for His Own glory, whereupon all of the enemies of His people shall be destroyed.

The result of the fulfillment of that prophecy is the fulfillment of another, which is found in Jeremiah chapter 31: “27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. 28 And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD. 29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.” The very next verse describes the New Covenant, to be made only with the people of Israel and Judah.

17 And the dragon was angered by [P47 and C want the preposition, where we would write “with”] the woman and went to make war with those remaining of her offspring who keep the commandments of Yahweh and have the testimony of Yahshua.

In Revelation chapters 1 through 5 we discussed the identification of Yahshua Christ as Yahweh God incarnate, and the messages to seven assemblies which illustrate their errors and attitudes which are still found to be prevalent among Christians today. The only assemblies which were not criticized were those of Smyrna, a name which refers to the oil of anointing, and Philadelphia, which means brotherly love. If we emulate those things, neither will we be condemned in the day of Christ. So keeping His commandments and loving our brethren, in that Christians shall have victory even in spite of death.

Then there was the vision of Yahweh's throne, and the vision of the Lamb and the scroll with seven seals. The opening of each seal would reveal some great event in history, as foretold in Revelation chapters 6 through 11. The seventh seal consists of seven trumpets, and with our interpretation of these seals and trumpets we saw history as it was revealed beforetime, from the beginnings of the Roman Empire through its fall, and then the Arab and Turkic invasions of Christendom, ending with the Reformation and the return of the people of Yahweh to the Word of Yahweh. The last of the seven trumpets is yet to sound, and when it does then seven vials shall be poured upon the earth, beginning in Revelation chapter 15.

The Eurocentric focus of all of these prophecies reveals that the European peoples are indeed the people of God, and none of these prophecies ever describe the Jews – except those which reference Satan, notably in Revelation 2:9, 3:9, chapter 20, and here in chapter 12. The veracity of these assertions can also be proven from ancient history. Revelation chapter 12 is a prophecy with many aspects, and it is evident that it was not only a description of the fall of Satan and the birth of the Christ child, but it was also a description of the establishment of the people of God in a Christian republic here on the North American continent, and the fact that the other Christian nations were also taken from the popes and given over to Christ at that same time.

It is also a prophecy of the future and final fall of Satan, which shall be completed at the return of the Christ. Just as the adversaries of our God attempted to kill His Christ as soon as the child was born, so also those same adversaries have been attempting to destroy this nation from its very inception. And not only America, they also have sought to destroy all of Christendom after it was freed from the control of the popes of Rome. The dragon had usurped the papacy once it became clear that it could not destroy Europe completely, and that shall also be established in Revelation chapter 13.

Now for the final verse in this chapter, in reference to the angered dragon:

18 And he stood upon the sand of the sea.

Here the Majority Text manuscripts have “I stood”, rather than “he stood”, for which reason the verse is also moved to the beginning of chapter 13 in translations such as the King James Version which are based on that text.

Revelation chapter 12, as it is interpreted here, ends what has so far been a mostly linear historical narrative of future events which had been revealed to John. In Revelation chapter 13, as it shall hopefully be made manifest, there is a prophetic overview of the period of the 2,520 years of Israel's punishment – the end of which began at the founding of this Christian nation, these United States. In its narrative, Revelation chapter 13 describes two great beasts. The way that the visions are related, the narrative picks up directly from where chapter 12 leaves off, however since chapter 12 is a prophecy with a many-fold meaning, we have to examine the context in order to understand the aspect of the chapter from which these two beasts are being presented.

If the woman being carried off into the wilderness represents the Israelites who were deported by the Assyrians and Babylonians, who had developed into the Germanic peoples, then the two beasts of the next chapter must also describe some entity which had arisen around that time, that it may persecute the woman. So here Revelation chapter 13 is not interpreted as being an extension of the linear historical narrative that is evident in chapters 6 through 12. Rather, it is a description of those entities and their attributes which Yahweh our God had permitted to be the vehicles of our chastisement, those powers which were behind the 2,520 years of tyranny, or seven times of punishment, seven times 360 being 2,520 years, which our race had endured in their period of separation from their God, and near the end of which they had returned to actively seek His Word beginning with the period of the Reformation.

The Word of God is the true Ark of His Covenant which is mentioned at the end of Revelation chapter 11, which we assert had described the Reformation. The original Ark of the Covenant is a container which held the Word of God, for which reason it was also called the Ark of the Testimony, and now the Bible is therefore the present-day Ark, which was opened in heaven, in the seats of power and authority in the Christian nations here on earth. This confirms our assertion that the Little Book of Revelation chapter 11 is indeed representative of our Bible.

This concludes our commentary on Revelation chapter 12.